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Show Thursday, June Aging - NEW YORK America's (AP) teaching force is aging, and reformers fear the trend could thwart the drive toward school improvement. During the last 20 years, the average age of the nation's 2.3 million public school teachers rose from 36 to 41, according to statistics from the National Education Association. Unpublished data from the 1988 Current Population Survey of the Census Bureau shows that 43.4 percent are 40 or older. Educators have usually invoked 'War room' in Seattle helps with Texas spill ff for HeaeCuDinig such statistics as evidence that mass teacher retirements lie ahead with no certainty that the profession is attractive enough to draw young recruits. Half to 54 percent of the nation's teachers will be eligible for retirement by the year 2000, said Jewell Gould, research director of the American Federation of Teachers. This "graying" of the profession contains other worrisome messages, several reformers believe. Age statistics suggest that a decade of school reform has been at least partly misdirected. "School reformers haven't looked a lot at the fact that in a decade, many of the teachers who will be in the schools are not there now," said Linda a professor at Columbia Teachers College and an authority on the teaching profession. Ernest L. Boyer, president of the Darling-Hammon- d, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, sa'd the numbers mean the nation had better pay more heed to improving the training of the next generation of teachers. He said this group will carry the burden of reform for years to come. He said it was a mistake to focus almost exclusively on present teachers. "Both older and younger teachers have to be considered, but if I were to draw a conclusion, I'd say we have been far too neglectful of educating the new generation of teachers who will be determining where schools will be going in the first quarter of the 21st century," said Boyer in a recent interview. d added it's generally easier to train a new teacher in reform techniques such as team teaching than it is to persuade a veteran teacher to break long-chDarling-Hammon- er mmmmm THE HERALD, Provo, Utah, ished classroom habits. Some teacher colleges have begun to address these problems. The "Holmes Group," a coalition of about 100 education schools interested in reform, is fostering programs allowing student teachers to practice new techniques in public school classrooms. Several such programs have started recently in Michigan, for example. The rise in the average age of teachers during the last two decades mirrors declining student enrollments and tight state school budgets. Those trends have been most pronounced in the Midwest and Northeast. Not all states keep teacher age data. But a check of state departments of education and local union affiliates found the average age of teachers in Connecticut, for example, is 43.3; in Georgia, 42; Indiana, 42; Michigan, 44; Maryland, 41.1; - Page and New Jersey, 42.5. The median age in New York was 42.4 as the 1988-8- 9 school year, and 25.1 percent of the teaching force is 49 or older. In Massachusetts, suffering the tax revolt effects of a decade-ol- d measure and a worsening budget crisis, the average age is 47. By contrast, teachers in New Mexico, a Sunbelt state with a growing student population, average 37.7. Reformers concerned over average age emphasize they don't mean to belittle the skills of veteran teachers. "More experienced teachers are more productive. They just won't make the mistakes a younger teacher would," said Gould. Nonetheless, the age statistics lend urgency to the need to update the skills of veteran teachers and create more collcgial environments in public schools, said Darling-Hammon- "By and large, teacher effectiveness increases during the first five to seven years of a career, then levels off and may even decline. Whether that happens depends on the school environment. Collegial environments that have lots of opportunities to develop and learn help foster professional growth. But that's not typical," she said. Educators believe that school improvement is most likely to take root in schools with a balanced mix of young and old teachers. "From what I see, whether or not a person is willing to take a look at innovative ideas has little to do with age," said Keith Geiger, president of the National Education Association. "I hear as many innovative ideas from 50 year-old- s as 25 year-olds- ." ME V'l '' ''a, Guard and cleanup contractors were deluged with raw information "and in many cases had no idea how to interpret it," Kennedy said. "We're here basically to provide a formal mechanism for transferring scientific information to the is-;x- 2 operational response guys, the Coast Guard." team The hazardous-respons- e must answer a vast array of ques- , 25-5- ALL BRAS, BEIFS, BIKINIS, DAYWEAR C00RINATES, SHAPEWEAR 25-4- OFF 0 0 OFF 25-4- Selected blouses. tions: Where would oil go if the vessel broke apart or sank? How much would drift to the bottom? How much would stay at the surface? How much would be carried by currents beneath the surface? What threat would the oil pose to shrimp, oysters, mussels and fish? What would be the best way to minimize the damage? Would containment booms do any good? If so, where should they be placed? How much air pollution has occurred? What is the danger to Corpus Christi, Galveston and other populated areas along the coast? What should be done about shipping traffic in the area? While the threat of a catastrophic spill receded today, the research unit still had plenty on its mind, including spills in the Arthur Kill waterway between New York and New Jersey, Buzzards Bay in Massachusetts and the Connecticut River in Connecticut. NOW 10.87 Reg 14 50. NOW 6.75 Reg $9 Lace Delight,Munderwire bra. Pima cotton briefs. NOW 3.94Reg. 5 25. Soft Skins4 briefs. NOW 6.75 Reg $9 Crossover tricot bra. cup available at similar savings. O NOW 1.69 Reg .2.25. cotton bikini underwear. 100 NOW 7.50 NOW 10.50 and DD cups available at similar savings. 'Sale excludes Smart Value items. $10. Reg You're Beautiful' bra. Sale prices effective through Wednesday, July 4th. 0 25-4- 0 OFF 25-4- OFF 0 Selected handbags. OFF 30-5- OFF 0 Selected women's coordinated separates. Selected pants. 0 OFF 0 Women's swimwear. Selected casual tops. 25-4- Reg. $14. Comfort Hours lace bra. D 25-4- OFF OFF Selected skirts. 30-5- 25-4- Selected women's dress and casual shoes. 0 OFF Selected spring and summer dresses. 0 Sale prices effective through Saturday, June 16. mm -- The Seattle control room is equipped with nautical charts and topographic maps for every coastline and major inland waterway. There's a large map on one wall dotted with markings for offshore oil and gas drilling rigs, weather monitoring platforms and buoys, the latest location of the burning ship and the outer limits of the slick. I- SAVE ON All" - ;,,1, v II.. IH. . u f SHEETS, COMFORTERS, BLANKETS, BED PILLOWS, BEDSPREADS, TOWELS AND BATH COORDINATES On a nearby bookshelf is an atlas listing shellfish and wetland areas, industrial and shipping sites, bathing beaches and other shoreline assets. "This is what we call our war room," Kennedy said. Salt prices effective through Saturday, July 14th. GET S5 WfMI I OF COUPONS FREE! Look for the special offer Ocamone cookbook ... free in today's paper in ttie SALE EXCLUDES JCPENNEY SMART VALUES. mtrch(ndt tffectivt through Saturday July 14 (eictpt noted). Intermedial mirkdowni may have been taken on originally priced merchandise. Reductions Irom originally priced merchandise will be effective until atock It depleted. Percentage! off represent savings on regular prices. Regular prices are offering prices only. Sales may or may not have been made at regular prices. Sale pntei on regular priced D7 reform: Bnammper 1H - SEATTLE (AP) Hours after oil began spewing from a burning supertanker in the Gulf of Mexico, scientists in a windowless "war room" 2,000 miles away scrambled to provide fast answers to salvage crews on the scene. Whenever poisonous, explosive or otherwise dangerous substances are released into the nation's waters, telephones start ringing at the Hazardous Materials Response Branch. "We are by far and away the most experienced group in oil spill response worldwide. No question," said Dave Kennedy, chief of scientific support coordinators at the war room, which is the Western regional headquarters of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. As fires raged aboard the Mega Borg off Texas on Saturday, the research unit was already providing cleanup and Coast Guard crews with vital data predicting the course and effects of a slick from the Norwegian supertanker. Two oceanographer-modeler- s were sent to Galveston to study currents and meteorological factors; three experts from Columbia, S.C., assessed hazards to seafood, beachgoers and shipping, and two Louisiana State University chemists analyzed the makeup of the vessel's cargo of light crude. Tomes of information were being sifted by two information management specialists. And a media specialist was sent to Galveston on Tuesday to field questions from reporters. Before the research unit was formed 14 years ago, the Coast yld 14, 1990 STORE WILL BE OPEN UNTIL 9PM SATURDAY, JUNE 16TH. mi 1 |
